I have always had an obsession with collecting quotes from books, particulary books about or by artists. I have notebooks filled with them and even started a site dedicated to art quotes.

Here are a few favorites…

  • Don’t pay any attention to what they write about you. Just measure it in inches.
    –Andy Warhol

  • Success is dangerous. One begins to copy oneself, and to copy oneself is more dangerous than to copy others. It leads to sterility.
    –Pablo Picasso

  • The fine art of painting, which is the bastard of alchemy, always has been always will be, a game. The rules of the game are quite simple: in a given arena, on as many psychic fronts as the talent allows, one must visually describe, the centre of the meaning of existense.
    –Brett Whiteley

  • At the age of six I wanted to be a cook. At seven I wanted to be Napoleon. And my ambition has been growing steadily ever since.
    –Salvador Dali

  • Painting gave meaning to my life which without it it would not have had.
    –Francis Bacon (the artist)

  • After a half-century of hard work and reflection the wall is still there.
    –Henri Matisse

They can be great to have laying around the studio or written on the walls if the landlord allows that kind of thing.

Feel free to share your favorite art quotes..